A former London Tube worker who was jailed for terror offences is back on the streets of London after serving just 11 months of a 31-month sentence, it has been revealed.

City Spy: Edelman lands Blair’s ex-gatekeeper Anji

‘Senior counsel’: Anji Hunter, who worked for Tony Blair for 15 years, is joining the US PR giant. Pic: Reuters

Published: 25 July 2013

Updated: 13:51, 25 July 2013

Here’s a heavy-hitting hire for US public relations giant Edelman: it has landed Tony Blair’s former gatekeeper Anji Hunter as a senior adviser.

Hunter, who worked for Blair for 15 years until 2007 and is married to Sky’s political editor Adam Boulton, will be providing “senior counsel” to Edelman’s UK chief executive Ed Williams and general manager Alex Bigg. She was director of communications at BP for seven years before heading off to Anglo American, and has latterly been working for the Royal Academy of Engineering as the director of The Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering. Williams says: “Anji is a force to be reckoned with.” In homage to her old Downing Street boss perhaps, Hunter says she believes in the “big tent”.

Hays scores footie deal with Man City

headhunters Hays are trying to make recruitment sexy, by signing a three-year global sponsorship deal with Manchester City. Sholto Douglas-Home, marketing director at Hays, is behind the initiative which will mean it can use Man City’s crest and players, with a focus on digital and social media, while Hays will also feature on pitch-side electronic hoardings and interview backdrops. “The partnership between Hays and Manchester City is based on a mutual ambition to attract skilled, expert professionals to build high performance teams,” says Douglas-Home whose stepfather, former Tory leader Michael Howard, is a Liverpool fan. If Hays sponsored Everton rather than Man City, that might have gone down a lot worse. Hays did not reveal the value of the sponsorship deal, but it is likely to be in seven figures.

* Property’s “Mr Oxford Street” is heading Stateside to lure new brands to Britain’s premier shopping street, Spy hears. David Kenningham, CBRE’s head of retail until last October and now in business for himself, is working with the New West End Company and is off to the US in November to plug the east end of Oxford Street as Crossrail draws nearer. The target is brands appealing to “younger, edgier office workers” who lurk at the grittier end of the street, although, as he says, “there are no easy wins”.

Austen’s in and Bank is now open to Persuasion

He’s been in the job less than a month, but yet more on banknotes from new Bank of England governor Mark Carney as Jane Austen is finally confirmed as the new face of the tenner.

Not only that but we now have a “review” in the “light of recent concerns” — that is, a torrent of complaints over Elizabeth Fry’s disappearance from the fiver — over the selection of figures for future notes. “The Bank will also review whether it can take further steps to operate within the spirit of the public-sector equality duty when deciding on future characters,” says Carney in his third pronouncement on the subject.

There’s so much airtime being given to this by Threadneedle Street the economy must be looking up...

* Have little puddles of sweat been pooling around your office chair during the recent heatwave? Well, take some comfort in the fact you’re not alone. Nearly 25% of London offices currently available to rent between the City and the West End have no air conditioning, according to data from DeVono Property. Apparently the worst place to work in the heat is the area known as Midtown, where more than a third don’t have the facility. Spy wondered what that smell was...